McCullough is a master of research along with being a wonderful storyteller. He takes the history of the area, and turns what could be dry and somewhat dull into vibrant and compelling tales ... The region and its occupants truly come alive in the hands of McCullough. It is a history that unfamiliar to most, and brushes with the famous and infamous add to the surprises ... Lovers of history told well know that McCullough is one of the best writers of our past, and his latest will only add to his acclaim.
It's a fascinating look at a chapter in American history that's been somewhat neglected in the country's popular imagination ... McCullough recounts the first voyage by New Englanders to the Northwest Territory beautifully, detailing the sometimes difficult but ultimately successful trip to what's now Marietta, Ohio ... McCullough's book is told from the point of view of the pioneers, of course, and doesn't focus much on the Native Americans whom they displaced. The stories he tells also center mostly around the male settlers ... Like McCullough's other books, The Pioneers succeeds because of the author's strength as a storyteller. The book reads like a novel ... Both readable and packed with information drawn from painstaking research, The Pioneers is a worthy addition to McCullough's impressive body of work.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough is a master of triumphal tales that celebrate Americans’ personal fortitude and achievements. His most recent book...is very much in that upbeat tradition ... The heroes are so upstanding that, somewhat unexpectedly for a McCullough book, the villains are more compelling ... casting the Ohio Company as a vehicle of higher ideals is a feat too difficult even for a writer as skilled as McCullough ... McCullough glides over these unpleasantries and focuses instead on Cutler’s role in lobbying to exclude slavery from the Northwest Territory ... McCullough’s treatment of the Native Americans whom settlers encountered in Ohio is equally blinkered. To McCullough, the natives were little more than impediments to progress. He cannot bring himself to say that those whom the settlers dislodged had rights to their lands in Ohio ... Rather than wrestle with the moral complexities of western settlement, McCullough simplifies that civic lesson into a tale of inexorable triumph.
...absorbing ... David McCullough brings to life the story of the courageous men and women who dealt with many hard realities to found the city that became Marietta, Ohio ... McCullough has again worked his narrative magic and helped us to better understand those who came before us.
McCullough keeps the reader engaged ... He makes me live what it was like to leave the New England coast and one's family members to pursue young hopes and dreams ... In these trying times, this book gives me appreciation, hope, and a willingness to go the extra mile. It is exciting to read about young people who had the desire to live in a wild wilderness and help one another as they made for themselves a new homestead. As American citizens, we are on this journey of life together, and we all need inspiration to continue it. This book is inspiration enough.
A rather old-fashioned work of American history dedicated to the march of progress and filled with digressions (about the menu at a presidential banquet, bad spelling, and foreign visitors’ perceptions of Ohio), The Pioneers is a Valentine to settlers who, as Gen. Putnam put it, exhibited 'spunk to the backbone' whenever they were faced with adversity ... Although he emphasizes the pivotal role played by the Cutlers in maintaining the prohibition against slavery in Ohio, McCullough does not address the attitudes of his protagonists toward race ... The Pioneers leaves us little reason to doubt (as an obituary writer for Ephraim put it) that the Cutlers, Rufus Putnam, Samuel Hildreth and Joseph Barker 'belonged to that class of strictly upright, honest and true men, of whom the pioneers of this state afford so many examples.'
...a starker — yet still inspirational — portrait about settlement of the sprawling Northwest Territory ... The book’s narrowed view allows the narrative to see how in the fledgling American Republican, the work of founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson can be traced to important deeds of frontier men ... McCullough’s book helps shine the light on the same American vision these men sought to advance.
McCullough tells the history of the Ohio Territory as a story of uplift, of what can happen when the doers of good are let loose upon a place. This is American history as a vision of our better selves. Lord knows we need it ... McCullough plays down the violence that displaced the Indians...He adopts settlers’ prejudiced language about 'savages' and 'wilderness,' words that denied Indians’ humanity and active use of their land. He also states that the Ohio Territory was 'unsettled.' No, it had people in it, as he slightly admits in a paragraph on how the Indians 'considered' the land to be theirs ... McCullough is quite right not to have written a glib lament for a falling-off from an originary moral peak. But his fondness for the sweetly evoked Midwest of the early to mid-20th century betrays an ahistorical vision.
...The Pioneers is bursting with the energy and curiosity of its subjects ... The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough’s signature narrative energy.
When it comes to representing 'pioneers' as isolated and hardworking idealists fighting off 'threats' from residents of the land they are taking, this book is a true throwback. Its success shows how big the gap between critical history and the 'popular history' that makes it to best-seller lists, Costco, and Target remains ... Native peoples hover around the edges of the first section of the book, a cartoonishly threatening presence to the good New England transplants ... In taking a side, narratively speaking, McCullough makes sure their narrow perspective on the matter also becomes ours ... McCullough is approvingly repeating one of the founding myths that justified stealing land from Native tribes—and it doesn’t seem like he even knows it ... shows exactly why 'popular' histories aren’t always narratively satisfying. When you commit yourself to celebrating a group of people—to repeating platitudes they wrote about each other and not looking at outlying evidence too carefully—things get boring quickly ... Even when McCullough does include interesting evidence, the kind that contradicts his hagiography a little, he seems utterly resistant to analyzing it.
McCullough's graceful, understated writing style is perfect for The Pioneers, a slowly unfolding narrative populated with frontiersmen and women going about the laborious job of clearing the land and building a new community — what is now Marietta, Ohio, on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells this story through the diaries and letters of the settlers — meaning that it's told from the white man's point of view. At times, McCullough himself adopts 18th-century prejudices, referring in one passage, for example, to Native American 'savages' chasing a group of 'brave men.'
...a unique chronicle of the settlement of the Ohio River Valley ... This is a compact work, but it often feels epic. And Pittsburgh-born McCullough’s personal affection for the region abounds ... McCullough’s latest vivid take on American history will generate avid interest.
McCullough (1776) uses his well-crafted writing style and thorough research to highlight the evolution of the 'Ohio territory' ... The swiftly moving narrative also shines light on the territory’s consistent antislavery position ... While some readers may be put off by the near-omission of the native people’s perspective, those seeking a pro-colonial history will find this is a fascinating and well-written look at the Cutler families.
[Cutler is] the kind of man McCullough typically admires – a bibliophile and polymath much like Adams, Roosevelt, and Truman ... It’s hard not to think of such characters in mythic terms, and McCullough invariably evokes them with a ready superlative. McCullough’s willingness to be impressed, although it can be overdone, is one of his most endearing qualities as a writer. His refusal to embrace cynicism as a form of sophistication, one gathers, is part of his popular appeal.
